A Journey of Struggle & Hope
Jovito R. Salonga
UP Center for Leadership, Citizenship
and Democracy and Regina Publishing, 2001
Heroism is an object of fascinating study. Is greatness earned through lifelong devotion to a cause; a life of steadfastness and integrity that serves as a model to present and succeeding generations?
Or is heroism won by a fluke of history when, in one decisive hour or serendipitous opportunity, a leader responds to a call for sacrifice or for one audacious act that leads to a people’s awakening or a country’s liberation?
No doubt, Martin Luther King, the leader of the civil rights movement in America, was a modern-day hero.
But, one day, charges were raised that he plagiarized some sections in his doctoral dissertation – and, for this one revelation, his place among America’s greats was threatened.
To the rescue came a journalist who said that a hero need not be a “knight in shining armor.” All that is required, she stressed, was when an act of heroism was needed, the leader came forwards and risked his life.
That’s why, says one historian, many of the world’s – or the country’s – great men were “fortunate” to have died when they were young. If Alexander the Great, Simon Bolivar, John F. Kennedy, Andres Bonifacio, Gregorio del Pilar – to name a few – grew to a ripe age of 70 to 80, would each one’s greatness lose its sheen.
Is greatness a meteoric blaze in a dark sky whose momentary brilliance outshines an otherwise uneventful or checkered life?
Compare that to the country’s ambivalence about an outstanding general (who outlived all heroes of the revolution), despite his key role in defeating the Spaniards in every way and in winning our independence.
But, there is not ambivalence with this one heroic life. Featured in “A Journey of Struggle and Hope” is former Senate President Jovito R. Salonga.”
Here is a life that has spanned eight decades (he just turned 81 last Friday) – marked by a series of heroic acts through peaceful and turbulent periods, steadfastness to time honored virtues – and characterized by a superior mind, steely determination, a heart of courage, and a soul ever attuned to the Divine.
This autobiography is a riveting narrative about our country’s storied past. And, with the participation of the author, history comes alive like late-breaking news. On the outbreak of World War II, the author narrates:
“In the early morning of Monday, Dec. 8, 1941, I was rudely awakened by the radio announcement that Pearl Harbor had just been bombed by Japanese planes …I got up from bed, unable to sleep. If this means war, I said to myself, there may be no classes today and in the next few days …My hopes began to fade away. Japanese planes, with their zero marks, were in control of the air and no American plane was in sight. My brothers and I saw a light Philippine plane engage one Japanese aircraft in a brief dogfight and then fly away.”
(Move over, Ernest Hemmingway. You’ve found your match in the power of narrative – with a difference: Yours is fiction, Salonga’s is for real. Yours is art, his is life.)
Through this book, we are brought to the torture chambers of the Japanese (where the youthful Jovito was severely beaten for his role in the resistance movement).
We also know what being poor means, with the author’s unshod feet going to school. We feel the exhilaration of being on top of the class. We join hum and get seasick in a voyage by ship to America. Our hearts are warmed when, on the boat, he meets his beloved.
Immersed in his book, we are present at his court battles marveling at his brilliance. We note his strategy, timing and superb networking in his first foray in politics. We find ourselves thanking God for his adroit defense of Ninoy Aquino, first in his “underage” case; subsequently in his many other cases when Ninoy was detained – finding defense through the mastery of the law.
We know up close how he nurtures such mind with thirst for knowledge – here and abroad. We understand the depth and breadth of his legal training, including an illuminating distinction between Harvard and Yale (where he earned his master of laws and doctorate) in their approach to law practice.
And then we hear him exchange pained goodbyes with Ninoy just days before the latter was assassinated.
This is a very rich book on the verities of life, not delivered as homilies, but in anecdotes and snapshots. You finish this book once, and then you come back to it for its wellspring of inspiring true-to-life stories.
For example, after winning the case for Ninoy that should otherwise have disqualified him from becoming a senator, Ninoy was very appreciative.
Narrates the author: “Ninoy came to my residence to express his appreciation. He said he had brought a new car, which he wanted to leave with me. I smiled and said, ‘Ninoy, do not cheapen the little we have done for you.’ He knew I meant what I said. He did not insist.”
This is not a self-centered chronicle of the author’s life. Familiar names naturally crop up in the storytelling, and their roles – and the events they triggered or influenced in our national life – are thus further illuminated. Some authors invent drama and pathos. For Salonga the author, that’s not necessary at all.
His life and the lives of his family, friends and associates had all the elements of suspense, conflict, tragedy, and triumph – surviving or ignoring death sentences, tortures, bombings, solitary confinement, betrayals, exiles – and escaping certain death by a hairline, landing on top of the Senate slate, and dismantling the huge foreign military installation of the world’s most powerful country amid a national mindset of dependence on a foreign power.
On the infamous Plaza Miranda bombing, considering that the senator was at death’s door, his account is a classic in understatement: “I didn’t know at the time that there were two grenades thrown and that one grenade did not explode. I felt a very heavy blow in my chest and could only mumble the words of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane: ‘Father, Thy will be done.’ I passed out seconds after the blast.”
Don’t miss this moving account. It tells us much about quiet heroism, an indomitable spirit strengthened by a childlike faith in God, and a heart that holds no bitterness.
After surviving several surgical procedures, healing came by a miracle. Home at last in a wheelchair and with bandage hand and foot, he was lyrical: “There were many starts in the sky, a spectacle I had not seen for so long. I went to sleep brining with me the unforgettable memory of that starry night.: His was the peace the surpasses understanding,
Unlike a meteor that blazes briefly and is gone, Senator Salonga’s heroism is a fixed and steady star in the Philippine firmament, made luminous in this story book where history and biography blend – urging us to reflect on one truth found in every page of the book:
The triumph of the human spirit can be a lifelong, day-to-day event – if you just don’t surrender your mind to the pressure of peers, the roar of the crowd, or the decree of a tyrant; if your heart is consistently on the side of what’s right and just; and if your faith in the Unseen Hand that is active in history is as solid as a rock.
Is that possible at all? It has been so with the author.
Treat yourself to something edifying for a change – one that will even restore your faith in your won capability for greatness. Get hold of the book and get acquainted with a great man.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment